Your daily drive could become a source of income, and even help you to make new friends, with an innovative app that fills empty car seats and, connects like-minded drivers and riders based on location and route.

Ford Brazil’s Heavy Truck division has developed an innovative technology to help truck drivers ride more safely and avoid a common situation that happens during their trip routines: travel fatigue. The Safe Cap looks like a common hat at first sight. However, it comes equipped with sensors that are capable of interpreting the driver’s head movements to warn if the user is tired or sleepy behind the wheel.

Worrying about a flat smartphone battery could become a thing of the past – at least for some pedestrians in London. Ford and smart cities start-up Strawberry Energy are rolling out smart benches to offer pedestrians free solar-powered mobile charging and Wi-Fi access while they sit and rest across the city.

Ford designers have been swapping some clay-sculpting steels and rakes for mixed reality headsets and visualization software that can change vehicle design elements – side mirrors, grilles, vehicle interiors and more – in mere seconds.